


So Stay With Me

by InsolitaParvaPuella



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dimension-Hopping Rose, Episode: s06e12 Closing Time, Established Relationship, F/M, Kissing, Timey-Wimey Romance, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 11:26:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17042852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsolitaParvaPuella/pseuds/InsolitaParvaPuella
Summary: "In two hundred years of travelling it is not uncommon to be found by someone following you, especially when you want to be found."The eighth time the Doctor met Rose on his two hundred year solo adventure, and the fifth time she met the Eleventh Doctor while stopping the stars from going out.





	So Stay With Me

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2013 and kept it to myself, then submitted it to the New Who Fic Olympics on Tumblr in 2014 and won my category because I was the only one who submitted eleven/rose in the all-ages rating. So apologies if you're seeing this for a second time, although it's been four years and it's been lightly edited to add many more mentions of the respiratory system, so I feel like this shouldn't be too gauche.

It happens in the deepest, sweetest part of the night. The Doctor is sitting on Craig’s couch, and father and son are deeply asleep for the time being. Then there is the sound of the fabric of the universe _stretching_ and _folding._ The Doctor feels a shiver building in his gut and a sharp wrenching against his time sense. Then there is the sound of a hole being punched into the fabric of the universe. The Doctor knows the sound well by now and it beckons him to stand and find the source.

He’s spent the last two hundred years running from his future, but Rose Tyler has ensured that he hasn’t spent all that time alone.

And the Doctor wonders briefly and fleetingly if perhaps Rose is being guided the same way he is; if they are always being pulled where they are needed regardless of where they _want_ to be. It is soothing to imagine that Rose has a guide — and that guide is probably herself, knowing all that was, is, and could be, some two hundred thousand years away — the way he has the TARDIS. He dismisses that thought as if it were soot on his coat, dusting it away because what matters right now is this moment, where Rose Tyler is standing in Craig’s backyard.

He takes his steps slowly, feeling his age in his bones. Rose meets him at the sliding glass doors and pushes them open. His arms are already open and waiting for her to fill them, and that’s all the confirmation she needs to fall into his hold. They both know the urgency of her mission, but the Doctor is always careful, watching the timelines and letting her go when they pull on her too firmly. They both know he will never let his selfishness put the universe at risk. This routine may yet be new for Rose (he isn’t certain yet), but for the Doctor it is a familiar one. In two hundred years of travelling it is not uncommon to be found by someone following you, especially when you want to be found.

“How many times have you seen me?” the Doctor asks, already suspecting the answer and too scared of it to pull on the knots of her timeline to check.

“The fifth,” Rose says, bending slightly in his hold so she can touch her cheek to his. The gesture is so tender and warm that he has to let go of her so that he doesn’t break her fragile human ribcage. Instead he helps her remove her jacket and takes her hand, because he knows how to control himself this way.

“Come on,” he coaxes. “This is Craig’s house, and since I used to be his lodger that almost makes it my house, too, and what’s almost mine is certainly yours.”

“Used to be a lodger?” is what Rose asks, and the Doctor smiles at her and gestures to the sleeping humans. They practically fall into the unoccupied half of the sofa, Rose sinking into the cushion behind her and resting on top of him, her legs laid over his and her head just under his shoulder. It’s comfortable and familiar and the Doctor doesn’t need to crush Rose into dust to keep her close, so he curls one arm around to stroke her back and leaves his free hand to take hers again.

“You used to be a lodger?” Rose repeats, keeping her voice low and speaking into his coat. She laughs silently, her diaphragm pushing air from her lungs in short bursts that the Doctor can feel through his clothing. “What alien menace was there?” she asks, cheerful and cheeky and almost mirroring that pink-and-yellow memory that glitters in his mind, a little idealised and associated with an old wistful longing. It falls a little short, but the Doctor appreciates the effort.

“A spaceship had occupied the entire upper floor of his home, which didn’t actually exist. A spaceship belonging to something called the Silence.” Rose doesn’t immediately ask what the Silence are, and in another time the Doctor would be disappointed that Rose has lost some of her curiosity (and Amy certainly would’ve asked, would’ve asked and asked until he bent and gave an answer or non-answer that diverted her) and her talent for asking the right questions. But in this moment, this single span of time on Craig’s sofa, he thanks Rose for her quiet by kissing the top of her head.

“Why are you here now?” she asks after several minutes have passed in their cuddle.

“I was in the area and decided to stop by, but then there was trouble and you know how I can’t resist trouble.” The lie is easy, and the words taste strongly of his previous regeneration, who would’ve said that and been very nearly telling the truth. He can almost feel Rose’s smile and doesn’t have to look down to know how comfortable she’s getting. The hand on her back can feel her ribs swelling with each breath.

He should just let her relax for an hour or two and let her go so he can work on the Cybermat and make a plan. Instead, he whispers, “Rose?” She hums a response and he pulls her closer, pressing her chest to his side as tightly as he can without hurting her. “Stay with me. Please.” He shouldn’t. But he believes in his ability to let her go (he’s had so much practice) when day breaks and as long as he lets her go she’ll continue her quest unhindered.

“I’ll stay with you,” she answers, and the Doctor should hate her for enabling him and his selfishness. But all he can muster is the hate for himself, which is an old and familiar route for him now, and really not worth the time it takes.

He feels calmer, now that he knows Rose will stay with him. She trusts him and his Time Lord abilities immensely, enough that she is willing to stall in her mission in order to stay with him when he asks. She puts far too much faith in him, and he wonders if he should warn her against it. But no, he loves Rose’s faith in him and he still believes in her, and maybe that’s a fair trade-off. He’ll believe in his wonderful, flawed, so human Rose and she’ll put her faith in her too-old, too-tired Doctor.

“Doctor?” Rose whispers, lifting her head from her shoulder and pushing away from his side a little. He lets his hold on her gentle and meets her eyes. He is pretty sure he knows what her question will be, because it is the right question to ask and the one he doesn’t want to answer.

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” she asks. “It’s like before, when you said—”

“There’s a storm coming,” he finishes. He pulls Rose more fully onto his lap and tucks his face into her collarbone. His cheek rests half on her skin and half on her shirt. “Do you remember _The Chronicles of Narnia_?” The question is not a diversion and Rose will not scold him for this tangent unless it becomes clear he is simply evading an answer. Her hands are in his hair, scratching his scalp in a way that once could have made him writhe in pleasure and now makes him purr.

“There’s a scene where Aslan is leaving his camp in the middle of the night and Lucy and Susan follow him and stroke his mane and stay with him while he’s taking a very long walk to the Stone Table. And he doesn’t want to go, but he has to for the safety of everyone else.” He kisses her neck once; her skin is warm and covered in dry sweat and he can hear her breath catch and then flow again.

“I remember,” Rose says, but the Doctor knows his point hasn’t hit yet. It couldn’t have, because he knows what Rose will do when she realises what he means.

Then she does, an audible little “oh” and then her hands are out of his hair and her arms are around his neck and she is hugging him to her almost painfully. He hugs her back, both hands pressing hard and flat against her back. He listens to her swallow her tears and finally closes his eyes. He breathes deeply and Rose starts trembling. “You can’t die, you just can’t,” she whispers. “So many people need you.”

“The world doesn’t need me anymore,” the Doctor answers. “There’s so many of you bright and shining people to keep the universe safe. I just put you into harm’s way.”

“I loved the travelling, even with all the danger. You made me better,” Rose says. “There has to be another way, some way you can keep everyone safe without dying.”

“It’s a fixed point, Rose,” the Doctor murmurs. Rose flinches and she breathes in a sharp, unvoiced gasp. She understands already.

“And I’ve said my goodbyes,” he tells her, a hint of a smile tugging at a corner of his lips. “I’ve been on a farewell tour. Jack sends you his love and tokens of his affection.” He kisses her collarbone gently, exactly the way Jack did to his mouth when they last met. Rose laughs a little, but he can hear how wet and miserable it is. She’s crying in earnest, if silently, and the Doctor doesn’t want his last memories of her to be tearful. He is not anxious for a repeat of any of his many farewells. He pulls back as best as he can and cups Rose’s face in his hands. Tears are rolling down her cheeks and she is trying to keep herself together with no success. He shushes her gently, rubbing her cheeks with his thumbs and offering her the best smile he can summon. The result is wet and less-than-satisfactory, but Rose tries to smile back.

“Rose, I’ve lived a long life, I’m ready to stop running.” He kisses her mouth and it is chapped and damp with tears, but it leaves him feeling happy and she is smiling a little even as she’s crying. “Don’t mourn me,” he murmurs. “You have your own Doctor to get back to, and he’s going to be so alive when he sees you.”

“It’s not _fair_ ,” she hisses, lowering her cheek to his shoulder. He does the same and strokes her back again. “You shouldn’t have to die.” Her hands slip under his coat and grip the back of his shirt fiercely. The Doctor suspects that if she could, she would keep him right there in her arms forever and fight off time itself to keep him safe.

“I can’t run from it, not any longer,” he says, and her hands wrench at the fabric of his shirt and Rose nearly growls. He can hear the sounds of a wolf under her voice, the twin voices of Rose and the TARDIS claiming him as their own and pledging to defend him. The Doctor runs his hand down Rose’s back, trying to calm her, to stop her metamorphosis. There are far more worthy causes for her to protect.

The eventual quiet is thick and covers them like a duvet, lulling the Doctor into a deep calm. It is a fragile and superficial thing, but it helps him keep his temper down. He does not want to face his demise as he did in his previous regeneration: emotionally torn to shreds and screaming against his fate.  He doesn’t want Rose to see that kind of distress, doesn’t want to disturb Craig and Alfie’s sleep.

“Doctor,” Rose whispers, “tell me a story. One of your stories.”

“Oh, don’t you want to hear about someone else? The Golden Goddess who swallowed Everything and ended the Time War, or the Man Who Lived, or the Last Centurion and the Woman Who Remembered? Those are much better stories than mine,” he says.

“I want to remember you,” she says. “The way you want to be remembered.”

She’s giving him permission to write his own story, however he likes, and it will be remembered and kept safe in another universe where _he_ will never be anything but a story. And so the Doctor, the man whose lies dictated the need for the new Rule Number One, tells Rose the truth.

He tells her about his companions, one by one; those sparkling and brilliant individuals who gave him his name and so much of his nature. He describes Susan, one of the great lights in his long life, and the Master, who orbits him like a binary star, and those few friends he made who were also children of Gallifrey. He describes with great care the many companions he’s travelled with, dropping each of these precious people into her mind like jewels into her palm, and she sits and listens and examines each character in his story through his eyes.

He tells his story out of order, because retracing the steps of his life would only provoke too many regrets as he retells his own follies and traces their origins. He focuses on those people dearest to him, his friends and fellow travellers, and lets the implications of his own life seep into the empty spaces around those words. He skips the parts he knows are upcoming in her life: the almost-reunion on the street, the metacrisis, the second time he sees Bad Wolf Bay. He jumps past his joyous Christmas with Jackson Lake and Rosita; past Lady Christina de Souza and her forward, confident nature that he cannot help but miss; avoids his shameful story of Mars and brave, dutiful Adelaide. Skips straight on to little Amelia Pond, seven years old and the universe pouring through her head. And when the story of the cracks in the universe is done, he brings his cheek to Rose’s and whispers a secret to her: “I wanted to see you one final time before I regenerated, but there was nowhen else on your timeline with me I could go to say goodbye. So I went back to New Years, 2005.”

This final confession leaves the Doctor and he falls back into his duvet of quiet. Rose has stayed awake with him while he spoke for hours about his life (but mostly those friends and loves and enemies who have defined it), and now she closes her eyes and curls into his front. “I barely remember that night.” She slips her arm under his coat again, rubbing his upper back softly. The touch is soothing and warming, and in the absence of such kind touches in so long, it becomes a kind of bliss for the Doctor.

In this haze of calm Rose kisses his face (eyes and ears and the tip of his could’ve-been-worse nose) and neck and even tweaks his bowtie before kissing his mouth once. And then again. And it’s so hard to stay still on Craig’s sofa and not disturb him while Rose kisses him breathlessly.

She pulls away after a particularly hard kiss and takes her hands away from his back, leaving only the faint feeling of contentment. “There’s a smile,” she says, a grin on her own swollen lips. And the Doctor smiles at Rose and Rose smiles back and then he’s hugging her tighter than he should, the spectre of his future (still/back/always) upon him.

The Doctor has spent hours on his stories, and the first hints of dawn are making themselves known. It’s time for Rose to go, so she can save the universe and he can stop the Cybermen terrorising a shop. He doesn’t let her go. He can’t— how can he, with his future weighing down his shoulders and her so warm and wonderful in his lap? He tries his hardest to hide inside the circle of Rose’s arms, face buried in her shoulder and hearts pounding against the bottom of her ribcage. She promised him forever and now he wants to force her to keep that promise, damn the universe and timelines and her future with another him where they will be happy without him. But then it hits him—

_She’ll be happy._

And suddenly he has the strength to let go, because if he holds Rose Tyler in his arms any longer the universe will collapse under the strength of a paradox. If he lets go of her, he will die, but Rose will be happy when she comes to the end of her journey. The other him will stop at nothing to ensure it.

So he pulls away from her, apologising for holding on too tight even as she is dismissing it. “You have someone you need to find,” he says. Rose shuffles off his lap and shivers as the cool morning air hits her where she was once leaning against him and the fabric of the sofa. She slides on her jacket and he watches in fascination as her posture is changed by the weight of the fabric.

He guides her to the backyard with a hand against her back, and at the open door he stops. Rose turns to him and grasps the lapels of his coat and pulls him down for a tender kiss. It’s the last time he’ll ever kiss Rose Tyler and so he cups her face in his hands and lets himself go.

It’s different now, he knows all too well. Absence has made his body react to Rose so differently than his previous one. His previous incarnation had been born for her, and her absence had hurt like the Chameleon Arch, taking away so much of himself and leaving an almost new Doctor behind. In this regeneration Rose is not his phantom limb. He can let go of her.

“I’ll remember you,” Rose promises when their last kiss is over, because it’s not really goodbye for her.

“Be happy,” the Doctor answers, because that’s all he wishes for her anymore.


End file.
